smooth talker

"have you talked to your brother today?"

"yeah, he was asking my opinion about whether to go to that florida football game he's been dreaming about for years or something."

"what did you tell him to do?"

"well, it sounded like he really wanted to go, so i said go, but cut back on spending so he doesn't break the bank. he obviously doesn't make much money working 6 hours a week."

"well he called me today, asking me for the money."

"that sneaky little rascal! you know what he said? when i asked if the tickets were really expensive, he said 'money's no object.' i should have known!"

"isn't it amazing how he tells each of us a different story?"

"but, you know, he never actually lies about anything. i didn't think to ask him how the heck he was so confident about the cash. i wish i had learned how to work it like that. he's got us all wrapped around his finger! i don't know where he gets it from."

"probably your father."

your baby with the bathwater

"hey, i'm going to throw all of these out. they're so raggedy."

"fine. but not those-- i can wear them when i'm working in the yard."

"i can't believe you're actually letting me throw something away for once."

"yeah, ha ha, why don't you just throw me out while you're at it?

"sure, someday."

this week in television

so i guess my team got eliminated in the first round of the amazing race.

sigh.

just means that i'm going to have to get off my booty and try to represent my peeps and hope to make it to round two. hey, at least anchal made the cut on america's next top model.

i'm not terribly heartbroken, however, because H and cc convinced me to watch arrested development on netflix. i thought i'd never get into it when i still didn't see the big freaking deal after six episodes, but suddenly the show became laugh-out-loud, freaking HILARIOUS.

i saw the season premiere of grey's anatomy, which i very reluctantly got sucked into even though i think the main character is not interesting enough to warrant all these guys being in love with her. it's soapy, but keeps me coming back for more.

and i finally got around to watching ghostbusters, which is has some pretty dirty references in it. however, i knew a lot of the premise from watching the cartoon the real ghostbusters as a kid. i was waiting for slimer to show up. it took 22 years.

don't worry; i'll still be running home on sunday night to catch TAR.

the flavor of my kind. finally.

ok, i had this big long post all set about how i'm damn excited that my favorite show, The Amazing Race, kicks off tonight and that i cannot wait to get home and watch it and how, since i got a dvr i refuse to watch commercials and i have no idea what kind of contestants they have. until i thought to myself, DUH self, go look it up online.

MY PEOPLE HAVE FINALLY MADE IT TO REALITY TELEVISION!

ok, ok, i know that's not true. they have an all-asian team on Survivor! (oh yeah, but not south asian.) and i think i flipped through and saw some contestant on America's Next Top Model a few years ago who tried to blow off the pain of being cut by saying something ridiculous like she only really wanted to use it to get into the business side of fashion anyway. yeah, sure, she only said that to save face for the Aunties. and from the previews, i think there's someone from my region on the next season of ANTM, too.

the reason that i'm so unbelievably excited is because i feel it is my duty to put my heart and soul behind anyone who bucks the Auntie patrol. Tony Kanal, M. Night Shyamalan, Parminder Nagra, Sarita Choudhury, Naveen Andrews, Russell Peters and a host of others that i'm sure i'm forgetting that are more than worth mentioning. especially because they don't usually list sculptors, or journalists, or architects, or fashion designers, or professional chefs, or makeup artists, or dancers, or trombonists, or all the other non-approved careers on imdb.com.

these people take on the big job of veering off the accepted path that is medicine/law/computerscience/and-of-course engineering. which is why it took nearly a DECADE to get a southasian on the tv show ER. in that entire hospital, there was not one of my people for that long? not a single ultrasound tech or phlebotomist or orderly. wanna know why? because no indian parent's friend in their right mind would allow them to allow their child to pursue something as risky as acting. i know these people want the best for their kids (read: quickest road to grandchildren), but that just leads to grandkids without role models they can identify with who may form skewed ideas of what it means to be beautiful, successful and loved by the world. (i escaped this particular fate because my parents are all about bollywood music videos. my idea of what a beautiful woman means is to have long luscious hair and run about the trees in the rain. which is another issue in itself.)

anyway, thank you Jerry Bruckheimer and the casting people for Amazing Race 10. i see that not only do you have my peeps, but you have another asian team (the other kind) as well as devout muslims and a person leaping through life despite an injury. and of course some cheerleaders and pageant queens. i'm sure more than one of them is a "/model," so you guys aren't straying too far from the protocol.

so, as if i wouldn't be doing so anyhow, i will be running home every sunday night/monday morning to check up on my team. and i pray that my people don't do something like be nasty to each other or cheat or pick fights or get eliminated right away because i want America-- in its infinite openmindedness-- to think all of us are tough competitors who know how to bring it, fight fair, battle it out and KICK SOME ASS! because, you know, we're, like totally, all the same. which is why we have to support each other.

so vipul and arti, this time it'd better be you coming home with a million dollars. my rep is on the line.




************UPDATE*******
Imagine my dismay when, after having programmed the television and triplechecked that it was set to record, i hurried home to find that it most definitely DID NOT!
maybe it was the heavy storm this evening that blocked the satellite dish, but now that i do a search for the show under many different variations, nothing comes up. damn you, DirecTV!

please don't ruin the ending. maybe if i ask really sweetly, someone very wonderful will hook me up with a copy of the episode.

exhausted

i have a project to do. a really big one. it will require tedious attention to detail and a lot of-- what do they call it?-- "get up and go" to complete. very little of which i currently posess these days. and i'm terrified about failing. maybe that is why i have put it off for two months when i should have been about halfway through by today.

this is very upsetting. i spend a lot of time worrying and little actually doing.

never fear, dear readers, i am aware of how deep the vat of doo-doo is that i tread; it's just that for some reason, i cannot seem to muster the motivation to actually begin. perhaps it's a fear of rejection, inability to attain the impossible goals i set for myself or the fact that i tend to view anything short of said impossible goals as an utter failure and may be putting it off to be able to say it sucks so very badly because i had no time -- all classic signs of procrastination. even today, as i sit here at the computer on the one day off this week that i had fully dedicated to taking that tentative first step toward certain doom, all i can do is look back on all the things i HAVE accomplished in an effort to put the crying off a little longer:

checkbook? balanced.

house? dusted, vacuumed, swept up, tidied

grates that go over the flames on the stovetop? soaked, scoured and put back into place

do-it-yourself-home-improvement and myth-disproving shows? watched, sometimes two at the same time

big production dinner? made

dishes? done (that's a biggie)

laundry? currently drying

magazines/newspapers/junkmail? sorted and moved to resting places, final or otherwise

cds? organized

correspondence? caught up on

first half of America's Next Top Model marathon? enjoyed (although i've never really been into that program, when they show them all in a row, i just cannot find the courage to turn off the tv.)

ice cream? eaten

knitting project? more than halfway finished

facial mud mask? applied

toenails? repainted

horoscope? checked

newspaper? read

current issues of rolling stone, paste and salon.com? browsed through

blog post? soon to be posted

and although i've demonstrated a considerable amount of restraint in NOT watching Ghostbusters, which i have never seen but have recorded, i am now in a decent frame of mind to consider possibly getting started.

but i sure could use a nap, first.

page 123

I've been tagged with a book meme, by Lia, as follows:

1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Scroll down to the 5th sentence.
4. Post text of next 3 sentences on your blog - name of the book and the author.
5. Then tag 3 people.

"And spineless. He went over it again and it looked the same. There was no way out, he would have to speak to her."

Atonement, Ian McEwan


let me just say that the sentence before this bit was seven --SEVEN-- lines long in a paragraph which didn't break for 21(!)lines. and that pretty much sums up the experience i had with this book, whose author had been so heavily praised to me that i actually went out and bought it. which i never do, because i don't like owning books i won't want to read again.

the story idea was good, but i think mcewan went to such trouble to set it up and drag out the reveal, i wandered away more than several dozen times. and when i finally made it to the big finish, i felt just a little cheated that it had been such a meandering road. rarely does it take two months.

ANYway, i tag:

jon
ale
highcontrast (who claims to have started blogging again. we'll see about that)

before you protest, remember, all you need is the NEAREST book. indulge me.

thanksgiving

so, you're 24.

but you know, to me you'll always be a smartass 3-year-old running around in smurf shorts, secretly recording cartoons over the best parts of of mom's betamax movies and feigning ignorance during the inquiry. and though you'd try to make me the fallguy, those dimples still betray you every time.

come to think of it, stealth has always been your modus operandi. like after you left for school and the alarms you'd secretly set on my cellphone went off 2 hours after i'd finally fallen asleep? yeah, thank the good Lord i couldn't reach through the telephone and yank out every last scraggly hair of your poor excuse for a goatee, pal. and at that ungodly hour, i think i would have ripped out the hair on your head, too.

i make the worst threats of bodily harm to those i love the most, baby brother. you squirmed into my heart to stay, back when dad would ask 'whose baby are you, mommy's or daddy's?' and you'd say 'cadiz's.' growing up, you pestered me to no end but i secretly loved the attention. you do great impressions. you know what i'm thinking when i look over at you during family parties with an eyeroll. and you're probably the only person on earth for whom i would endure the entirety of 'the benchwarmers.' (don't you dare ask me to sit through that ever again.) you gave me the best advice when i had my heart torn apart and you are the only one who can get away with calling me on my bullshit straight out. i don't think i can go more than a few days without a call-- peppered with madeup catchphrases from your crew such as 'latrix'-- telling me just how little is going on.

you've always made me an ally; even at a very young age you demanded i was present. despite the rules against children in the surgical area, you wouldn't let them start iv's without me there holding your hand and always asked for me when you woke up, often before you called for mom and dad. and even when we were fighting bitterly, the second there was outside trouble we worked as a team. you probably don't even remember those things, but they mean a lot to me. i'll always be there for you, no matter how far away you are.

on this day, H and i will be hanging out in your favorite place, wrigley field. don't be salty; it wasn't my idea for you to move all the way across the country for school. and believe me, if you were still in town it'd be the two of you at the game-- i'm only in it for a ballpark hotdog. but i think it's the perfect way to spend your day. because even though everyone's birthday should be marked with something special, each year that i can celebrate yours is truly a blessing.

listening out for a calling

truth is, i just happened onto this dungeon gig. when i was growing up, i thought i wanted to be a doctor. i even volunteered (candystriped dress and all) at a hospital before realizing it's definitely not the life for me. later i thought about art school, but my parents worried that i'd be an artist of the 'starving' kind and got into my head. i went to university and, after studying as little math as possible, found my way here. i like the job, but i'm still hoping to figure out what my *ideal* is so i can start getting there.

the other day i was on the phone with la mariachi. she plays in a band as a hobby, but is getting her teaching certificate. i asked her how she knew she wanted to be a violin teacher. she said it was what she was good at. and what made the violin better than, let's say, the oboe?

"math." she said.

at her grammar school in florida they only offered stringed instruments and if you took orchestra you got to miss math class a couple times a week. damn, if we had that system in my hometown, maybe i'd have actually practiced my cello and given yo yo ma a run for his money.

i still hope that one day i'll be walking down the street and be hit by the revelation of what my life's work ought to be. but i've resigned myself to accept the odds that i may never find it.

anybody want to buy a dusty cello?

that's the breaks

when i was a kid, i was a nailbiter. i'd chew on my fingernails while reading or watching television and sooner or later i'd have to spit out what broke off between my teeth. nasty habit, i know, and i kicked it. but that left me with fingernails that break or tear with very little pressure.

i normally don't care one way or another, but my best friend was getting married so i figured my hands should probably look decent in the event of any cheesy setup 'bridesmaid-y' photos (all the feet in a circle, all the bouquets, etc). so i applied strengthener on my nails and they grew nice and strong.

there were no such photographs, but i was impressed at the results. the talons lasted for a whole month. one morning last week when the alarm rang, i bolted up without noticing i was tangled up in the sheets and fell out of bed, landing on the tops of my fingers. ouch.

sometimes it's not even about will power.